Six cut from Socceroos’ preliminary World Cup squad

The trimmed 26-player squad includes Melbourne City’s uncapped Daniel Arzani, 19, as well as exciting prospect Fran Karacic, 22, who is currently plying his trade with NK Lokomotiva in Croatia’s topflight.

Australia’s all-time leading goalscorer, Tim Cahill, remains on track to represent the green and gold at a remarkable fourth FIFA World Cup.

Also potentially heading to the global showpiece for the fourth time is Saudi Arabia-based utility Mark Milligan, although he didn’t see game time in either 2006 or 2010.

But it’s the end of the line for Hibernian sharpshooter Jamie Maclaren, whose hat-trick on Sunday against Rangers was not enough to get him to the final phase of World Cup selection.

Maclaren, Alex Gersbach, Apostolos Giannou, Aleksandar Susnjar and Bailey Wright will not be heading into camp.

Van Marwijk said while it was difficult to make the required cuts to his preliminary 32-player squad, he feels he has the balance right.

“It is always a challenging task to reduce a squad, however this is the nature of professional sport at the highest level,” van Marwijk said.

“Overall, I believe we have named a strong and ambitious squad for our training camp in Turkey and friendly against Czech Republic in Austria.

“I am sure that in training in Antalya, and in our match against the Czech Republic, we will see players pushing to go to a higher level as they compete for a place in the final squad,” he said.

All but six of the players bound for Turkey have featured in the A-League at some stage in their careers, with five current players – Arzani, Joshua Brillante (Sydney FC), Dimitri Petratos (Newcastle Jets), Josh Risdon (Western Sydney Wanderers) and James Troisi (Melbourne Victory) – all vying for a place in Australia’s final 23-player squad for Russia.

Australia’s final squad is scheduled to be announced in Turkey on Sunday 3 June, a day ahead of the submission deadline.

The Socceroos will continue their build-up for the 2018 World Cup in Russia with friendlies against Czech Republic in St. Polten, Austria on June 1 and Hungary in Budapest on Saturday June 9 (local time)